"What's wrong with your son?" That's the question a friend, whose son has special needs, was asked recently. Imagine being asked that about your kid. This is the sort of things parents of kids with special needs deal with fairly regularly -- be it on the playground when someone sees the eyes of a child with Down Syndrome or in the grocery store when a child with autism is having a meltdown.

The good news? Not everyone is trying to be a jerk. Some people just have a bad case of foot in mouth disease that seems to break out around kids with special needs.

So how do we bridge the gap? How do we satisfy people's curiosity without making a child feel like a science project?